


to keep it all the year

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rachel Lives, Christmas, Established Relationship, Family Dynamics, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: Alex takes a moment with his family before the holiday season gets underway.





	to keep it all the year

**Author's Note:**

> Merry (belated) Christmas, and a very happy New Year.

“Do you like it?” Alex asks, settling onto the carpet.

Rachel hums in vague approval, takes the mug he offers her with a grateful noise. She leans her head back, appraising. “It’s beautiful,” she says. Her mouth tugs into a smile. “It’s always beautiful. Like a Christmas card.”  

“Is that a good thing?” He looks up at the tree, a massive thing that wouldn’t have fit in their first New York apartment, or their home back on St. Croix.

His mother looks over at him, her expression softening. He can see the lights from the tree reflected in her eyes, red and green and gold. “Of course.” In the midst of all that light, a question that Alex pretends not to see.

He wants, a little, to rest his head on her shoulder and shut his eyes for a while. He’s been nursing a headache since he got up, and he’s not sure if the coffee in his hands will help or not. In a few hours the house will be full, loud and straining at the seams and infinitely brighter. He wants it. He wants it, but not right now.

“It’s a little much,” he says, not sure if he means it or not.

Rachel hums, too knowing for Alex to be entirely comfortable with it. “When you were small, if you couldn’t get to sleep I would walk around with you in my arms to see the decorations out on the streets -- you would get so quiet I would think you were sleeping, but when I looked down you were always watching. Eyes like dinner plates.” She stretches her leg out to bump against his, warm even through the thick fabric of their pajamas.

He can’t see the fine lines around her eyes like this, or the traces of gray in her hair, everything early-morning dark or else painted in the forgiving glow of the tree. He can imagine her at twenty-six, exhausted and determined and brave, the only reason he’s sitting here right now, the only reason he has any of this. _Thank you,_ he wants to say, or _I’m sorry._  

“I gave you a lot of work, huh?” There’s meant to be a joke somewhere in that. His mother’s eyes just look soft.

“Never.” She wraps an arm around him and holds him tight, tight. Her mouth twitches up at the corner, an afterthought. “You saved all your trouble for when I was supposed to be done raising you.”

“Seriously? We’re going there?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” she says, easy. “I’m just saying.”  

“Unbelievable,” Alex mutters, no real heat behind it. “Which one of us is going to break it to George that I married him out of delayed teenage rebellion?”

Rachel snorts. “He already knows, he’s just hoping you don’t figure it out.” He fixes her with a withering look. She nudges her shoulder against his, careful not to spill their drinks. “I’m kidding,” she says, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Besides, you can’t leave him now. I just got used to living like a rich woman.”

He chokes out a quiet laugh, sees his mother’s face light up with something like pride. It makes his chest hurt to look at, so he gives in, lays his head on her shoulder. He’s an inch or two taller than her these days, but the difference is negligible when they’re sitting. He still fits.

He hears the muffled sound of a cup laid down on carpet, and then his own is being tugged from his hands. He closes his eyes, he lets it go.

The familiar weight of her head laying on his, her hair tickling his nose, his cheek.

“Did you sleep at all?”  

“A little,” Alex says, the same half-lie he’s been telling her for half his life. He expects the same response -- the soft snort, _mentiroso --_ but it doesn’t come. 

She rests a hand between his shoulder blades and starts to rub soft circles there. The rhythm is familiar, grounding. “Bad dreams.”

It’s not a question, so he doesn’t answer.

She sighs, the sound from somewhere deep in her chest. He feels her exhale stirring his hair like a breeze, and then it’s still.

There’s a space here where he could ask her why she’s awake at all. Their Christmas tree fully lit when he came downstairs, his mother a dark outline in front of it. Both of them roaming the house before dawn -- like ghosts, or else outrunning them.

The stairs creak, and Rachel lifts her head.

“It’s just George,” she says. He’s stupidly grateful for it. He knows where he is, and when, he just -- he’s grateful.

He feels her shake her head, an answer to a question George didn’t ask out loud -- yes or no, he’s not sure. A pause, and then the sound of footsteps muffled by carpet.  

George settles beside him quietly, not quite touching. “Is he asleep?”

Rachel makes a noncommittal noise, leaves Alex the out if he needs it.

“I’m awake.” Alex opens his eyes, and the world is red and green and golden again. Rachel presses her hand against the curve of Alex’s spine, once, and then her hand falls away. _Thank you,_ Alex thinks, or maybe it’s _I’m sorry._  

“Did we wake you up?” Alex asks.

“No. I saw you got up, and I wanted to make sure you were alright.” George looks between Alex and Rachel, his brow furrowing. “Did I interrupt something?”

“We were just…” Alex waits for something to appear on his tongue, an excuse or explanation that won’t bring back the drawn, worried look George gets whenever Alex is unhappy. He comes up blank.

“Admiring the tree,” Rachel finishes, reaching for her mug. She looks over at George, surprisingly soft. “You did a good job with it.”

George raises an eyebrow at the praise, but he smiles. “I didn’t do much. Alex picked it out.”

Alex hums, shifts his hand the few inches it takes to reach George’s and tangle their fingers together. His thumb finds George’s wedding band and he toys with it for a moment, watches it catch the light as it twists around his finger. “Yeah, I’ve got good taste.”

Rachel snorts into her mug, but when Alex glances up, he can see the smile tugging at her mouth, around her eyes. George says nothing, but he shifts closer now, the warm line of his body pressed firm to Alex’s side.

George stretches his legs out, shifting to avoid the pile of presents spilling out onto the floor. Alex tucks his face against George’s arm, muffles a snort.

“What’s funny?” George asks.  

“It’s too much,” Alex says, not really meaning it.

George looks down at him, laugh lines deepening as he fights a smile. “They’re not all for you.”

Rachel leans forward and grabs a present at random, drops it into Alex’s lap. Alex looks down, sees his name written in George’s neat, careful cursive, and then glances up at George, raising a brow.

George rolls his eyes and picks the present up, ignoring Alex’s protests as he reaches for it, and returns it to its place. “You’re both impossible.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.” Rachel settles back into her spot. Something wistful on her face, and then it’s gone, replaced with an easy amusement. “Besides,” she says, “some of these have my name on them.”

George hums, knowing. “I was wondering why you agreed with me.” His expression is soft, though, and Alex thinks he can see something like understanding written there.

“Should have brought me gifts when you introduced yourself,” Rachel says lightly. “I would have put a bow on his head and let you have him.”

Alex splutters. “Ma!”

“There was a very good bottle of wine waiting if you had just let me past the threshold,” George says, utterly dry.

Alex waits for the moment to sour. No bitterness, no lingering hurt. George strokes his thumb over Alex’s hand, eases the bit of tension gathered there. Alex stops waiting, and breathes, and it’s easy.

Rachel arches an eyebrow, unapologetic. “It worked out for you in the end, didn’t it?”

George mirrors the expression. “Is this your way of asking if I still have the wine?”

“He learns. Incredible.”

George snorts. “I’ll bring it out after dinner. It seems appropriate for the season.”

Rachel tilts her mug in his direction, the picture of smug satisfaction. _“Salud.”_

George laughs, then, proper and loud, shaking his head. Alex feels it move through him, a warm tremor, and he lets go of something he didn’t realize he was still holding.   

They sit like that for a while, the silence punctuated by his mother drinking her coffee. The sun crawls into the sky, brightening the room in slow increments. For now, though, the tree is still the brightest thing in the room. Alex watches it until the lights start to blur in front of his eyes, abstracted into smudges of color, bits of bright.

“You should go back to bed,” Rachel says. He blinks slowly, finds her watching. “You have time.”

Alex pulls a face, something in him recoiling at the thought of laying in the dark. George strokes over his hair, gentle and coaxing in that way that works with alarming consistency. “Or we can lie on the couch for a while, find something to watch.”

Alex shakes his head slowly, disbelief rather than refusal. “I’m fully capable of managing my own sleep schedule,” he says, but he gets to his feet anyways. “Where’s my coffee?”

“Mine now,” Rachel says. “Sorry.” She grins, sly and bright and Christmas-colored.

Alex fixes George with a pleading look.

“No, I’m not making you more. You need to relax,” George says, making his way to the couch. Alex rolls his eyes, hears his mother laugh -- he follows without prompting, lets George pull him down onto the couch.

“Rachel?” George offers.

She leans back on the carpet, rests on her elbows. “I’m fine here.”

“You’ll fit,” George says, pulling his legs back pre-emptively to make more room.

She looks over her shoulder at them, smiles -- a quick, wry thing. She smooths a hand over the carpet -- her left, empty now for over half his life.

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Thanks for reading! Leave a kudos and comment if you liked it!  
> *Find me on Tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
